Futures End
Futures End was a quest undertaken by Terry McGinnis to prevent the End Future. A time travel mission, McGinnis travelled back to the year 2019, years after the creation of Brother Eye. Upon arriving, the decision was made between McGinnis and ALFRED to keep the sentient satellite in the dark. Background The machinations of the quest started when the Superman debuted and the Colony of the Collector of Worlds arrived to initiate the Terminaut Invasion. The failure of the invasion resulted in the creation of Brainiac, a far more malignant and intelligent collector. With the metahuman population rising, the Batman and Mr. Terrific created the satellite Brother I to monitor the superhuman populace. The satellite gained relative sentiency and went rogue and became Brother Eye, although the heroes managed to expel it temporarily, it returned to Earth. There it ended up manipulating Project Cadmus and Kevin Kho, eventually receiving a new programmer and using it to threaten the Batman before disappearing. Brainiac, having had manipulated the Psi War on Earth, later returned, vying for control of the planet. Attacking, he initiated the largest battle the planet had seen at that point: the Battle of Earth, but was ultimately repulsed by Superman and forced to leave Earth. For years the Earth remained safe from Brother Eye, with it returning in time for the worst event the world had ever seen: the Earth 2 War. Nonethless, the world managed to stay safe from eye during the war as it was deactivated. After the Earth 2 War, Cadmus Island was set up by King Faraday, Mr. Terrific returned to Prime Earth and Brainiac again began to plot revenge by manipulating Terrific. Brother Eye, on the other hand, due to being compromised hacked into Cadmus Island for it's own safety. Prelude Prior to the mission beginning, Bruce Wayne and Terry decided at one final desperate attempt at beating Brother Eye, unhooking him from the Firestorm Matrix. In the ruins of Central City, Frankenstein, the only remaining sentient agent of Brother Eye, killed the Flash. The Blue Beetle and John Stewart then acted as a diversion while Grifter and Amethyst attempted to unhook Brother Eye. However, Beetle and Stewart quickly fell to Brother Eye, with Grifter and Amethyst not being afforded enough time, dying soon after themselves as well. Realizing his plans to have failed, Bruce prepared to travel back in time to the year 2012 to prevent the rise of Brother Eye. However, when the Batcave was attacked by Brother Eye, Wayne was mortally wounded, forcing McGinnis to go back instead. However, as the time travel device was proportional to Wayne, McGinnis arrived five years too late, in the year 2018. Frankenstein then recovered the body of Bruce and sustained it to keep it alive. Then taking the Joker as well, he began to prepare the madman for surgery. The Quest Even though the quest primarily revolved around Terry's quest to prevent the reign of Brother Eye from happening, there were several conflicts going on around the same time that keyed in to Terry's mission one way or another. Thus, they were technically considered a part of Terry's quest, even though they only began to converge in the second and third phases. Phase One Note, that all of the following parts of the first phase of Futures End, whilst occuring simultaneously to each other, were separate. While they did intersect with each other at certain points, for the most part, the first phase of the quest consisted of mostly separate threats. In the following phases, the threats and heroes faced remained separate from one another, seemingly unrelated. However, they set the stage for the second and third phases and as such, only the parts Infiltration and The Investigation had altered the future due to Terry's interactions with the heroes and villains present in both parts. Other parts continued to go on as the future had originally intended. Infiltration: ' * Realizing that because Brother Eye had already been created, McGinnis changed the mission to keeping Eye silent. Terry was then attacked by the cyborg form of Plastique, which had followed him to the past. Shutting it down, Terry stored it in a shopping cart. Figuring that the best place to start would be the Terrifitech Tower, Terry tried to infiltrate it. However, he only got so far before he was forced out. Terry then began to slum outside of the tower, witnessing the unveiling of the uSphere while plotting his next move. Mr. Terrific, upon seeing Terry in action as Batman Beyond began to grow paranoid. The first thing he did was unveil the video of Batman Beyond to the public. He then began to get his analysts to try and identify the new Batman Beyond, discovering him to be Terry, disguised around the Terrifitech Tower as a hobo. Terry, however, was not the only one trying to make it into the Terrifitech Tower, as the Key and Plastique were attempting the same thing, recruiting Coil to do so to steal the uSphere. Spying on the trio of villains, Terry was confronted by Terrific, whom he proceeded to attack. Although he dominated their battle, the arrival of Terrifitech security forced him to retreat, allowing Terrific to take the Plastique-cyborg. The cyborg was also seen by a confused living Plastique. Realizing he could use the Key, Plastique and Coil, Terry tracked them to the Wounded Duck to approach them. Offering to join them, Terry quickly found himself in a fight with the Key, whom he easily dispatched. This lead to the bar's owner, Cal Corcoran, confronting him, although Terry simply brushed him off and left the bar with his new team. After discussing plans with his new team, Terry left the room for a minute during which the team watched Terrific's broadcast on Terry. Figuring Terry to be too dangerous, the team dumped him and had Plastique knock him out. Key then decided to try and kill Terry, with Coil wanting to do it. However, before Terry could die, he used a batarang to rebound and try and take the two out. It was then that Plastique changed her mind and turned into a ticking time bomb, claiming that they would either work together or die together. * After taking the cyborg, an amazed Terrific began to analyze it, surprised that it contained Nanotech Ebola, a cybernetic virus he had only theorized about. He then got back to trying to figure out who the Batman Beyond was alongside an alien, although the alien was only able to converse digitally and only provide output. Terrific's biggest mistake at the time was never learning the alien's identity. Unable to comprehend the anomaly, Terrific decided to expose him, publicly declaring the Batman Beyond to be a thief after the uSphere and claimed him to be a Multiversal alien. Terrific, being a fighter for Multiversal rights, was troubled by his own actions, especially after his girlfriend confronted him. Upon further studying the cyborg, Terrific realized that the cyborg was not multiversal, but created on Earth. Convinced the Batman Beyond was a threat to the Earth, Terrific began to conspire to find a way to defeat him. After discussing the uSphere with alien, Terrific learned it alien planed to arrive on Earth. Also unknown to Terrific, the alien was none other than Brainiac. After analyzing the Boom Spheres, spherical unstable weapons capable of killing New Gods, Terrific left to the Ardeen Proving Ground to display to the military his new line of T-Spheres. There he was met by his Earth 2 counterpart, Terry Sloane, aka Mr. 8, who also unveiled his Origin Goggles. These goggles then made the world believe Terrific to be an Earth 2 duplicate, a plan that was formulated by Mr. 8 and a duplicate of his from another world. Mr. 8 then attempted to get Sonia to stabilize the Boom Spheres, but after talking to the Jimmy Olsen of Earth 2, Terrific was given a prophetical message that inspired him to rise and act up against Sloan. After manipulating Sloan into killing his duplicate, Terrific managed to use the uSphere prototypes, which were different than the actual model, to defeat the villain and send him into retreat. '''The Help: ' * After accepting the title of Green Arrow from her brother, Emiko Queen took on Naomi Singh as her new partner, Dart. After weeks she finally met her brother again, finding him bloody, bruised and battered. Giving Emiko a pyramid, Oliver told Naomi to deliver it along with some other items, anonymously, to Lois Lane. Later going with Emiko to confront Shado, Oliver agreed to join the Outsiders if they would help him in an attack on Cadmus Island. Magus then proceeded to shapeshift into Oliver and reveal his return on television, prompting Cadmus to send Deathstroke after him. Magus then faked Oliver's death at the hands of Deathstroke while also sending out a distress signal to Firestorm. Deathstroke also took a disguised tracking device left behind by Magus, giving Oliver the exact location of Cadmus Island. In Vancouver, Jane Kirby left her work at the homeless shelter and found herself being trailed by whom she thought was an agent of the Global Peace Agency. Confronting the figure, she found it to none other than Emiko who revealed her knowledge of Jane's true identity, Big Barda. Bard and Emiko then decided to meet in Quebec, arriving in Montreal a month after their initial meeting. There they conspired to go to Metropolis and cross the US-Canada border. Before the two could go to Emiko's boss, they were attacked by Deathstroke and Fifty Sue, who had split her conscience in two to allow her to continue to help Cole Cash and aid Deathstroke. Barda and Emiko managed to defeat the twisted dynamic duo and escape into the streets of Montreal. Later returning to Vancouver, they met up with John Diggle where Emiko finally revealed they would be heading to Cadmus Island, where she claimed it's leader, King Faraday, housed Earth 2 wonders and was responsible for the "death" of Green Arrow. '''The Fall of Firestorm: * After receiving a distress signal from Oliver Queen, Jason Rusch attempted to get Ronnie Raymond to help him, but the latter's laziness let the two get late and lazy. After finally merging the two made it to Seattle to find Green Arrow dead amdist the rubble. At Arrow's funeral, Firestorm and Arsenal nearly got into a fistfight. Afterwards, with Ronnie over encumbered by guilt, he refused to let Jason separate from him. When Jason and Ronnie finally did separate, they both agreed that Firestorm as a superhero was finished, with both going their separate ways. Jason then returned to his mentor, Dr. Yamazake, who unveiled to him his latest scientific breakthrough: teleporters that could fit inside any home. Ronnie on the other hand went to the Wounded Duck and tried to get picked up, only to be forcibly removed by the owner, Cal Corcoran. Jason and Ronnie were then both warped to the Watchtower where the JLA requested they make amends and return to being Firestorm, both vehemently refused. Multiversal Hunters: * Grifter had begun hunting Daemonites and other aliens posing as humans, whilst trying to produce a method to eradicate all of them. The FBI mysteriously backed him on this, with agent King Faraday cleaning up his messes and wiping record of his existence. King Faraday then confronted Cole, giving him the proposition of joining him or being labelled America’s next serial killer. After Cole refused, King shot him in the back, paralyzing him and delivering him the ultimatum once more. Forced to accept, Grifter was then shipped off to Cadmus Island for his training where his back would also be repaired. There, he was informed that he would be working with Slade Wilson and Fifty Sue. Meeting with Slade and Sue, Grifter found the young girl to dislike him and Slade threatening to kill him if he refused to join them. Accepting, he then discovered Cadmus Island to be a prison for the superpowered inmates of Earth 2. Cole was then attacked by a new and invisible model of the OMAC Security System after which Fifty Sue took him to the medical unit. In an attempt to find this new stealth OMAC, Cole and Sue broke into the subbasement of Cadmus Island where they found Earth 2 "normals" upgrading the OMAC Security System. Sue then split her conscience into two, allowing her to continue helping Cole and help Deathstroke. After Sue was defeated when with Deathstroke, being fully "there" with Cole forced him to fall out of the vent and into the hands of two OMACs, which were killed by Fifty Sue. Of the two scientists working in the subbasement, one was killed by Sue and the other, the Earth 2 version of Lana Lang revealed the truth behind the stealth OMAC. Cole was then joined by Slade and trapped in the holding cells area for three days as Sue took Lana with her to look for the OMAC. Upon revealing what he and Sue were up to Faraday, both Cole and Slade were made to follow the GPA-FBI agent. Slade, Lana and Sue later met with Faraday who revealed Cadmus, due to system glitches and the presence of stealth OMACs, had been compromised and that he wanted Cole and Slade to find out how. Cole then devised that trying to find out inside the island was useless as whoever compromised Cadmus Island would have done it from the outside. Then, just as the prisoners began to break out of their cells, Cole attacked Slade only to be knocked out by Sue. * Grifter's partner, Justin, then realized Cole was missing and fled the headquarters. Heading to Voodoo, the two agreed to team up to find Cole. Meanwhile, Faraday approached a girl named Mercy who later contacted Voodoo and revealed the encounter she had. This got Voodoo to realize that her former employer was out to kill her and had taken Cole, prompting her to start putting her team back together. * After Cole and Slade were pulled away by Faraday, Hawkgirl and Rita Loomis began to talk about Fifty Sue, Cole and their implants. They were then pleased at the return of Mr. Miracle, who had easily managed to bypass the OMAC Security System, who revealed an unpleasant revelation: that their implants were designed to feed Project Cadmus a stream of bio-data about E2s and grow. Despite believing himself to be safe, Miracle was unaware that Faraday was getting suspcious of his mannerisms. Red Tornado then had her eyes removed and in addition to the severing of her arms and legs, was placed hanging in front of a computer system while writhing in pain about her eyes. Hawkgirl was then sent to a Cadmus Laboratory to get her implant revised, before this could happen, however, the OMACs turned on the leading scientist and the Cadmus Island prison break started. Recovery: ' ' * Stormwatch, Earth’s first line of defence against aliens, was traversing through the Bleed when it was attacked by an unknown entity. Before disappearing, with its members seemingly murdered, Stormwatch was able to send out a distress call to SHADE. Frankenstein, who had left SHADE a long time prior, was living peacefully in the Himalayas when he was attacked a robot from the organization. Tracking SHADE down, he had a confrontation with Father Time before he was attacked by SHADE's newest agent, Amethyst. Informing Frankenstein of what happened to Stormwatch; Father Time managed to convince the creature to join him in discovering the truth behind the incident. Meeting up with Ray Palmer, the Atom, Frankenstein, now once again allied, although not a part of, SHADE, prepared to travel through the Phantom Zone to find Stormwatch. SHADE was then attacked by Black Adam, the phantom devil. After defeating him, they arrived at the Carrier's wreckage, finding all the members of Stormwatch dead and floating lifelessly in space. Palmer then took off the arm of Hawkman and attached it to Frankenstein's missing arm. The Nth Metal then revived Hawkman who prepared to aid the agents of SHADE. Father Time then began to monitor the agents, unknown to them he was aware of what attacked Stormwatch and silently hoped that the agents of SHADE would be able to neutralize the threat. While his arm began to heal, Hawkman, while conversing with Amethyst, received an emergency message from another surviving member of Stormwatch. While Palmer stayed aboard the wrecked Carrier, Hawkman, Amethyst and Frankenstein went to the planet the distress signal came from, somehow crash landing there. The trio arrived on an unknown planet and were quickly identified as carbon and necrotic based lifeforms by the robots inhabiting the planets. Continuing the mission of cradle cleansing given to them, the robots proceeded to attack the three to destroy all of the planet's lifeforms. Although they initially won the fight, they were then encountered by Engineer, one of the missing members of Stormwatch. Discovering her to be leading the robots, they tried to reason with her, but were captured as the Engineer prepared for all the robots to self destruct. The attack prompted SHADE Net to go offline. Later placed in a holding cell, Amethyst and Hawkman began to grow closer and discuss the state of the Engineer. Frankenstein then proceeded to have his first dream in over two hundred years, with it being a vision of the End Future. They were then freed by the Engineer, who was accompanied by a host of robots. The Engineer wanted to bring Hawkman before her master, to analyze him, and before long, ended up in a scuffle with Frankenstein and Amethyst. The Engineer then revealed that she had synthesized and recorded Angela Spica's consicnece into a data field, with the new mind inhabiting the body having effectively killing the original Engineer. The Engineer's revelations continued to get more and more shocking, with the first being that they never crash landed on a planet, but rather a ship the size of a planet. Her third and final revelation was the most shocking, that the being that destroyed the Carrier, controlled the robots and herself was none other than the alien collector Brainiac. The Investigation: ' * Lois Lane then received a package containing a number of items, including a clue that led to her discovering the long thought dead Red Robin being alive and owning th Wounded Duck. When she confronted Corcoran, he had just evicted Ronnie Raymond. He proceeded to deny her claims. King Faraday was then about to approach Lois, but the mysterious Masked Superman ended up stopping him. After receiving another package, this time containing coordinates, Lois was confronted by Madison Payne, Cal's girlfriend. While Lois began to look for the coordinates, Madison approached her father, Maxwell Payne, for information on the Titans. While visiting her father in the Metropolis Armory Ward, she was attacked by Rampage who was rescuing Ethan Boyer. When Superman intervened, Madison was saved. Although the coordinates led Lois to Cadmus Island, it's disguise threw her off the trail. She then confronted Superman on his search for Ethan Boyer. Madison on the other hand was given a necklace for a gift by Cal. Rampage demanded Ethan change her back to her normal self, however, he tricked her into going more insane so that Superman would be busy trying to stop her. The Wounded Duck was then robbed by a thief who also stole Madison's necklace, refusing to act in front of Madison to hide his past as Red Robin, Cal tracked then down and using a hood to hid ehis face, recovered the necklace and gave it back to Madison. Lois on the other hand continued to investigate the package, and looked into the emerald pyramid which showed her the world of Earth 2 including the Red Tornado, her Earth 2 alternate. When Rampage began to rampage on a bridge in Metropolis, she was confronted by Superman but managed to escape. The encounter resulted in Lois revealing the vision given to her by the pyramid to Superman and although he felt unsure as to what do with it, the masked Man of Steel promised to look into it. Stormguard also began to try and track Boyer and realized early on he would be selling hacked Earth Cards. Finding two of his dealers, Stormguard began an interrogation and upon learning one of the dealer's was a war veteran, began to try and help him. Later, Rampage's rampage hit Metropolis resulting in a temporary evacuation. Upon going to investigate, Lois was saved by Superman, who was taken off guard and had half of his mask blown off, which resulted in Rampage turning her attention to Lois. Superman quickly bounded back and returned to the offense, fighting no holds barred, determined to take Rampage down. At this point, however, Rampage had grown too powerful for Superman and nearly took him down, until Lois arrived. This gave Superman distraction enough to give him breathing room, allowing him to say SHAZAM and send out a lightning bolt powerful enough to take out Rampage. Turning back into Billy Batson, now a weakened young adult, he barely managed to request help from Lois. '''Strange Signals: ' * In Kansas, two folks named Midge and Tommy discovered strange alien crop circles. Not knowing what to do, Midge remembered a past acquaintance with John Constantine. Summoning him, she prepared to get more answers. Later, in Southeast Asia, an exploration team found a strange temple made of gold covered with the same symbols that Midge found. The exploration team was then massacred by a cyborg which awoke from the temple. Aware of what occured in Asia, Constantine and Midge began to ponder who they could call for help. The cyborg then travelled to a ship Madagascar where it continued it's slaughter. The ship then made it's way to the Horn of Africa where he met up with Midge and Tommy and realized that the cyborg was making it's way towards an alien, prompting him to declare he would find the alien first. Making way to another town slaughtered by the cyborg, John, Tommy and Midge arrived at the very spot that Constantine claimed the alien would arrive. After waiting for a while, the alien, Kal-El, the original Superman, did arrive. Phase Two In the second phase, parts began to converge, with several events going on to merge into one. Therefore, the second phase saw the future being altered on a larger level than had been done in the first phase. '''The Heist: *Terry, Key, Coil and Plastique all entered the tunnels below Terrifitech with their roles: Key would get them in, Terry would make sure that Coil made sure that they stayed in and Plastique would get them out. As Key and Coil made their way to the uSphere vault, Coil began to make sure the building would close in on them and Key started to hack the vault. Taking off the comlink the connected the team, as Terry attacked the main database, Plastique began to look for the cyborg that resembled her. After Terry got the information he needed on Brother Eye, he was able to get ALFRED to determine where it was located at. Deciding the next heist would be at NORAD, Terry determined that the most reasonable way to now take out the damaged satellite would be to hack a nuclear missile and blow it out of the atmosphere. After Key and Coil stole the uSphere, Terry reestablished the comlink and learned that Plastique failed to meet the team at the rendezvous point. Battle of Cadmus: ''' *Barda, Emiko and Diggle arrived on Arrow Island, which Diggle revealed to be the island that Oliver Queen was stranded on for years. There they met up with a still breathing Oliver Queen and Arsenal.On Cadmus Island, Faraday watched over the chaos going on and communicated with the infiltrator, whom he realized to be Brother Eye. Blackmailed into helping the satellite, Faraday continued to watch the chaos. After Sue left to "see the wizard", an unconscious Cole, Deathstroke and lana contemplated how the Island became compromised, realizing that somebody modified the implants behind their backs. Unknown to them, they were being spied on by Power Girl. The wizard Sue was seeing was none other than Brother Eye, who revealed that since he could not control her, would attempt to destroy her with the rest of the island if she tried to rebel against him. '''Survival: *After recuperating, Billy Batson attempted to leave a stunned Lois and incapacitated Rampage. When Rampage awoke, Billy attempted to turn back into Superman but was forced unconscious by Rampage. Before Rampage could kill him and Lois, however, the two were saved by Stormguard who managed to finally take down an injured monster while also alerted the authorities and geneticists of her presence. Stormguard then took Lois and Billy to the Watchtower while requesting she not reveal Superman's identity as the former Shazam. 'Return: ' *Going with Kal-El to his farm, Constantine tried to explain to him the need for the true Superman, but was just brushed off. After talking about the Earth 2 War, he did manage to get the Kryptonian's interest by revealing Brainiac's upcoming arrival. Category:Conflicts